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Behalf Of S. E. Anderson 2 Announcements From Xavier University of Louisiana · posted Sep 7, 05:17 PM Announcement One Xavier University Establishes Emergency Web site Xavier University's online presence remains down in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. However, Xavier has established a Web site for students and staff with emergency information, http://www.xulaemergency.com. Please check the site daily for information regarding Xavier. Announcement Two Xavier College of Pharmacy Requests Contact Information Xavier University College of Pharmacy administration requests that students and faculty that have not yet notified the College or University of their current contact information to please e-mail Angie Edwards at aedwards@aacp.org. ==================================== Relief Fund Established for Low-Income Students <http://chronicle.com/katrina/index.php?id=33> Hurricane Katrina's impact along the Gulf Coast is not yet fully known. But we can be certain that some members of our TRIO family (of low-income, first-generation high school and college students) are among those hardest hit by this devastating storm. The Council for Opportunity in Education has established a special TRIO Hurricane Relief Fund and is now accepting tax deductible contributions by check or credit card. See our website: www.coenet.us for the contribution form. We will depend on TRIO personnel from the affected areas to help identify people in greatest need, and deliver the funds directly to storm victims. Nate Easley, the Council's associate vice president for academic affairs, is coordinating the relief effort. =================================== Thursday, September 8, 2005 As a Community College in Mississippi Digs Out, Staffers and Students Look to a Difficult Future By SARA HEBEL Perkinston, Miss. Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College's administrators, employees, and students are beginning to pick up the debris of their campuses, homes, and lives after Hurricane Katrina plowed through this state just over a week ago. Classes are scheduled to resume on Monday, exactly two weeks after the storm came ashore, at the four campuses of Mississippi's largest community college, which had enrolled about 10,500 students for this fall. The institution's campus here, 30 miles north of the coast, and its Gulfport campus, near the beaches hardest hit, suffered heavy structural and water damage, totaling an estimated $15-million. Crews from a disaster-recovery company in Texas that the college hired two days after the hurricane hit are at work, tearing out waterlogged carpets and ceiling tiles, repairing roofs, and chain-sawing tree limbs. Administrators said they would not be surprised to lose a couple of thousand students. They have already transferred some students who are temporarily living elsewhere to online courses for the fall. If enrollments do drop, the loss of tuition and fees -- revenue that makes up more than one-third of the college's $70-million budget -- would be one financial hit among many the college expects to suffer. Another blow will come in the form of reduced support from state and county budgets, which are likely to be deprived of revenue from the damaged economy here and focused on a host of other needs. State revenue from gambling taxes, as well as funds from individual income taxes and sales taxes, are expected to plummet. In later months, a construction boom might help soften the blow, state officials say. Mississippi Gulf Coast's president, Willis H. Lott, said the college has insurance to cover the total replacement of buildings at a rate of $80 per square foot. The cost of repairing and replacing damaged structures, though, is now estimated to be closer to $140 a square foot. He estimates that the rate will rise with the costs of steel, cement, and fuel, which have been scarce here since the hurricane. The college will have to use some of its reserve funds to cover the costs, Mr. Lott said. He is seeking help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, from which he has also requested 150 units of temporary housing for his homeless employees. He also has assigned staff members to look for matching-grant programs that may be available from government and private sources. Offers to help have poured in from colleges across the country. Repairing bricks and mortar isn't going to be the hard part, though, campus administrators say. The real challenge will be to help people restore order to their lives, and colleges like theirs are essential, they believe, in helping Mississippi's Gulf Coast region meet that challenge. "Community colleges are so important to a community that's trying to pick up the pieces," said Colleen Hartfield, the college's vice president for institutional relations. She believes two-year institutions like hers are especially critical in a state like Mississippi, which has a large proportion of low-income families and where 70 percent of all college freshmen start their postsecondary education at a community college. With the hurricane destroying about 16,000 jobs at casinos and countless other positions in businesses along the Gulf of Mexico and inland, community colleges can help train workers for new careers and help people who have nothing left to begin making progress toward something, she said. Among other things, the college decided this week that it would add some short, nine-week courses this fall that students could take to get job training in certain areas, perhaps in construction, that would be in demand. Going back to work also can help restore structure to college employees' lives -- something Ms. Hartfield knows from firsthand experience. A pine tree split her family's home here in half, she said, and the routine of work has been comforting. Administrators estimate that as many as 150 of the college's 800 full-time employees have lost their homes. There is widespread concern that some of the 200 faculty and staff members who did not report to campus meetings on Tuesday may have died. At the college's Jefferson Davis campus, in Gulfport, which is about a mile and a half north of the beach where some of the worst destruction occurred, only 84 of 200 employees showed up for Tuesday's meeting. So far college officials know of 31 full-time employees on that campus who have lost everything. One staff member who lost her home has been sleeping in her car. A computer technician who lives in Pass Christian, Miss., has the only house standing in his neighborhood. Even though he has no running water, he has taken in many neighbors and even has people living in his horse trailer. On Tuesday, the technician was on the Gulfport campus, helping to restore the college's e-mail service. On Wednesday, Trudi P. Mullins, the college's graphics-services manager, made it back to work here in Perkinston after spending the previous four and a half days trying to salvage what was left of her single-level home in Gulfport. The hurricane's storm surge pushed sewage-laden water as high as five feet in some parts of her house. Her car was completely submerged. She saved 10 percent, at best, of her belongings, she said, lugging them out of her home in a wheelbarrow. But Ms. Mullins said she feels lucky because she is alive, has a place to live (with her brother, whose home nearby survived), and is back at work. "This is your first step going back toward routine," Ms. Mullins said. "My brain and my heart were exhausted with going through just this constant waste of everything you've built in your life." The day before, Janae Johnson, a freshman at the campus here, the college's only residential branch, pulled up to her dormitory to see what she could salvage. Ms. Johnson's family home, in Pass Christian, is gone, wiped out in the storm, and she had come to collect more clothes and to check out what belongings she had left. In her room, she found her SpongeBob Squarepants pillow, her laptop, framed photographs of herself with friends, some compact discs, a bottle of Louisiana hot sauce, and more clothes than she had remembered. Those are now all her possessions. Ms. Johnson, who wants to major in journalism, said she looked forward to resuming college. The students had taken one week of classes here before being evacuated. "Maybe it will take my mind off a lot of the things that have been destroyed," Ms. Johnson said. She has not visited where her family's house once stood, and said she would not go back: "I might cry." The community college is setting up a fund to help students and employees who have been affected by the hurricane. The institution is also seeking ways to help the community more broadly. In the days since the storm, the campus here has housed law-enforcement officers, power-company crews, and rescue workers. After the college's computer labs reopen, officials plan to hold sessions where people can learn how to file insurance claims. When classes resume next week, campus officials are not sure how many faculty members or students to expect. Some employees may not be able, or may not want, to return to work. In addition to those whose homes are damaged, employees who are parents will have a hard time finding child care as long as the public schools in the area remain closed. Cheryl Thompson-Stacy, the college's vice president for academic instruction and student affairs, said she had fielded offers from professors elsewhere in the country who have offered to teach courses online, to fill in gaps if some faculty members cannot return for the fall semester. She may accept some of those offers, she said. Getting back to some semblance of normal is simply going to take a lot of flexibility from everyone at the college, Mary S. Graham, vice president for the campus here, said in remarks to faculty and staff members who gathered on Tuesday. "You may have a Ph.D.," she said, "but we may need you to mop the floor this week." ========================== Hundreds of evacuated students will board buses today for their first day in the Houston Independent School District - a welcome return to routine for both parents and children who have spent nearly two weeks fleeing Hurricane Katrina's wake and sleeping in area shelters. Parents said Wednesday they don't want their children to fall behind academically. "All they're doing here is running from one end of the hall to another. Enough is enough," said Reliant Center resident Cynthia Hampton, 56, who signed up nine grandchildren for school Wednesday. "They need new surroundings." Hampton's grandchildren were among 445 youngsters who registered for class by late afternoon Wednesday. Evacuee enrollment in the state's largest school district is expected to increase this week, as HISD's enrollment push continues through Friday at the Reliant Park complex and the George R. Brown Convention Center. Children colored pictures as their parents filled out yellow, green and pink forms. Dozens of volunteers, registrars, counselors and health experts were on hand to guide them through the process. Wednesday's enrollment session brings HISD's count for evacuated students to more than 1,885. District leaders said they have 14,000 available seats. "We're taking in the equivalent of another school district," HISD trustee Kevin Hoffman said. Most of the younger students will be sent to Douglass and Ryan elementary schools, which are being reopened today for the Katrina survivors. Other elementary students could be placed at Dodson, McDade, Frost and Anson Jones, if needed. Middle school students could attend Fleming, Fondren, Black and Holland, while high schoolers may be placed at Jones, Kashmere, Barbara Jordan, Sterling and Scarborough. District leaders are hoping state and federal governments will help offset the $60 million it could cost to educate as many as 10,000 evacuated students for the entire year. The actual enrollment and cost could be less. Right now, district employees said they are just happy to help. "Words can't describe how I feel in being able to help our neighbors get back into a normal routine," Hoffman said. U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said school districts such as Houston can expect some financial aid, but she offered few specifics. "We're trying to figure out ... how best to do that," she said. "We're working on it." Returning to class is an important step in helping the children put their lives back together, volunteers said. "The thing is just to put some normalcy in their life," said Cathe Phipps, a Texas Baptist Men volunteer from Dallas. "I have seen children who are very excited about going back to school. They're ready." Suburban districts in Harris County have taken in roughly 6,900 evacuated students, including 1,148 in Cypress-Fairbanks, 811 in Alief, 404 in Klein and 900 in Katy. Educators said they are trying to make sure the children have the clothes, supplies and emotional support they need. Many students escaped the storm with just the clothes they were wearing. They've since survived even more trauma. "We didn't come with anything because we were stuck in an attic," explained Terryanna Durel, a 9-year-old who registered Wednesday. "We got in a boat and went to the Superdome. I didn't like it there. They were raping and killing people. I'm just glad I came out safe." Terryanna said she misses her friends, bike, television and favorite clothes. But the girl, who hopes to be a nurse, is excited about going to school in Houston. "New Orleans is a small town. This is like a city right here," she said. Of course, her view of Houston has been limited to the Reliant Center complex. "Do they have houses in Houston?" she asked. "Big ones?" Her little sister quickly added: "Do they have stores?" Adrian Peters, 17, said it may be hard to keep his mind off what he's been through in the past week and a half. "I'm going to think about all this for a long time," said Peters, who made his way to the Superdome through deep water. "I'm ready to start going to school. I'm tired." Reliant resident Raymond Warner, 17, said he's anxious to see the campus, students and teachers today at Jones High School. He hopes to try out as a wide receiver on the school's football team. "It's new. I've never been to Houston before," said Warner, a senior. "Hopefully they'll treat me the same way as everyone else." After being separated from her three children for a week, 22-year-old Rebecca Soloman said it'll be a little tough to send her 4-year-old daughter, Kariell, off to prekindergarten. "We didn't know where they were," said Soloman, whose children were rescued by the Coast Guard. "I promise I will never let them split us up again." Other families found the registration process frustrating. "I got down here at 7:45 a.m. Now, I have to wait on a phone call," said Veronica Bowman, who moved out of the Astrodome on Tuesday and was having trouble enrolling her three sons. She wasn't sure how she is supposed to transport her children to Longfellow Elementary, the closest school to their new apartment. "They're just sitting around doing nothing. They need to be in school," she said. jennifer.radcliffe@chron.com =========================== Thursday, September 8, 2005 http://chronicle.com/free/2005/09/2005090802n.htm Life Goes On: Miles From Home, Tulane Officials Worry About Admissions, Fund Raising, and the Mail By JEFFREY SELINGO Houston Even as Tulane University officials try to work from here, amid the chaos, to reopen in New Orleans for the spring semester, it's business as usual for the admissions staff, which is attempting to recruit a class for next fall. As the heart of the admission season approaches, the staff is working out of quarters in Richmond, Va., near one of the suppliers of its admissions materials, most of which were left on the campus. In an interview on Tuesday, Scott S. Cowen, Tulane's president, declined to go into specifics on the university's expectations for admissions next fall. But he said that members of this fall's freshman class are the "most vulnerable" because "they haven't had the opportunity to experience New Orleans and they haven't had the opportunity to bond to the institution." There could be a "ripple effect," he said, that could influence admissions in 2006. Meanwhile, the university's admissions officers continue traveling to college fairs around the country, the traditional venues for selling the institution to prospective students and their parents. It just so happened that, on Tuesday night, one such gathering was scheduled here in Houston, just as the city was filling up with refugees displaced by Hurricane Katrina and days after Tulane officials canceled the fall semester in the storm's wake (The Chronicle, September 6). But the show went on, and more than 200 students and parents showed up at a ballroom at a Marriott hotel to hear Ian Watt, a Tulane admissions officer, make his pitch, a talk that had obviously been revised at many points along the way by Katrina. He read e-mail messages from displaced Tulane undergraduates praising the university. And he reminded the group that mailing addresses and telephone numbers for the admissions office would change, although he was unable to provide that information just yet. "I want to focus on the future," Mr. Watt told the group, moving to his usual set of talking points -- the opening of an expanded student center, the university's successful baseball team, and plans to hire more faculty members. "The New Orleans you will encounter a year from now will be strong," he said. "Tulane is going to thrive." During a question-and-answer period, nearly every inquiry from the audience centered not on Katrina's impact but on the nuts and bolts of admissions: SAT scores, declaring a major, references, and registering for classes. In this slightly surreal setting, only two questions concerned Katrina. One was about what address to use for reference letters. The other inquired about the possibility of campus visits this fall by prospective students. Afterward, in interviews, many students said their plans to apply to Tulane would not change because of the hurricane. "It seems like they have everything under control," said Mindy Schultz, a high-school senior, who reported receiving at least two e-mail messages from the Tulane admissions office in the last week. Her mother, Elyse, was equally optimistic. "As long as New Orleans is ready for them, she can go," she said. Another mother, Laurie Dreyfuss, was a little more cautious about the plans of her daughter, Amanda. "I just keep thinking, What if this happened next year, when she was there?" Still, she said her daughter's decision about where to enroll next fall would probably hinge on what it always did: financial aid. * * * Just six months ago, Tulane announced the public phase of a fund-raising campaign with a goal of $700-million by 2008. The aim was to push the university's endowment over the $1-billion mark. Now, with hurricane-relief efforts competing for charity dollars and what is likely to be a host of costly new needs on the campus, Tulane officials said this week that the focus of the campaign would probably change. "The previous goals," said Yvette M. Jones, senior vice president for external affairs, "will be put on the back burner for now." * * * Tulane administrators are missing many things as they work out of a Four Seasons Hotel here, 350 miles from home, but one of the most sought-after things has been mail. Officials here believe the university's mail has been delivered to several locations, including New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Dallas. This is a concern because, even though important communications these days come by e-mail, snail mail is still good for one thing: checks. While Tulane has business-interruption insurance that will allow it to continue paying its full-time employees and other essential expenses for a few months, it is trying to collect as much revenue as it can to help avoid a cash crunch, given that it will be closed for the fall semester. So officials sent out a rescue team on Wednesday in hopes of locating as much official mail as possible and using a FedEx airplane to ship it to Houston. "We have to figure out what we need -- things like magazines will be held, even The Chronicle," said one Tulane official. * * * A chance meeting in the lobby of the hotel, where Tulane has set up temporary quarters until office space is ready in the next few days, led to a little more help for the university's skeleton staff. Deborah L. Grant, vice president for university communications, was walking through the lobby wearing a Tulane shirt the other day when a man approached and ask if she worked for the university. It turned out that the man's family had just been evacuated to Houston from Belle Chasse, La., and his daughter, Maren Leopold, was supposed to be a freshman this fall at Tulane. Ms. Leopold sent an e-mail message to Ms. Grant, and by Wednesday morning the would-be student was working in the university's hotel suite, trying to figure out how to get a laptop to print a document. Ms. Leopold, who said she had been on the campus for "only a few hours" before it was evacuated, has no plans to take classes at another university this fall. "I've had my heart set on Tulane, and I don't want to go anywhere else," she said. "So I might as well volunteer for them." Copyright © 2005 by The Chronicle of Higher Education =============================== http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i03/03a00101.htm From the issue dated September 9, 2005 Hurricane Devastates Campuses on Gulf Coast Colleges scramble to help students and assess damage; reopenings are uncertain By KATHERINE S. MANGAN An ominous tally of flooded buildings, ripped roofs, and shattered lives emerged on college and university campuses throughout the Gulf Coast region last week as officials began to assess the extent of the damage from Hurricane Katrina. In New Orleans, where authorities say thousands of people may have died, no one could guess when colleges would be able to reopen. Along the coast of Mississippi, where entire communities have disappeared, the outlook was also grim. Meanwhile, college leaders from around the country, along with federal education authorities, began making arrangements to accommodate the tens of thousands of students whose lives and educational plans were disrupted by the category 4 hurricane and its aftermath. Scores of colleges in other states have extended open-ended offers of admission to students who were enrolled in institutions affected by Katrina. In some cases, the offers included free tuition. The U.S. Department of Education said it would do what it could to help colleges transplant financial aid for students who do relocate to other colleges. The agency said it would also extend deadlines for student-loan payments for students in the affected areas. Louisiana higher-education officials last week also approved a series of measures to make it easier for displaced students to continue their studies online or at other universities. Insurers and other property-loss experts also have stepped up with guidance for college officials who had begun thinking about how they will repair their damaged campuses. Looking for Higher Ground Many of the college leaders who rode out the hurricane on their campuses were scrambling late last week to relocate their administrative operations to safer ground. The Rev. Kevin W. Wildes, president of Loyola University New Orleans, left for Alexandria, La., where he and other Loyola officials planned to establish administrative operations. Norman C. Francis, president of Xavier University of Louisiana, who had not been heard from for several days, had spent the early part of the storm in a hotel in New Orleans before being transported with others to Baton Rouge. News of Mr. Francis's whereabouts came as a relief to many in higher education who had feared he was among the dead. Now in his 70s, he is in his 38th year as president of Xavier, the longest tenure of any president in the country. Among the areas hardest hit when the storm roared ashore early last week were the campuses of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. Kenny Flanagan, a spokesman for the system, said it could be three to six weeks before the campuses in Gulfport, Perkinston, and Gautier could reopen. Just restoring power could take up to six weeks, he said. The system serves 10,500 students, and many of them, as well as faculty and staff members, have lost homes. "In my office alone, 5 of the 11 staff members have homes that are either destroyed or uninhabitable," he said. Buildings on the Gulfport campus were flooded with a foot of water -- "just enough to screw up the Sheetrock and flooring," Mr. Flanagan said. The Perkinston campus, which is the system's only residential one, sustained the most damage. Half of its buildings, and two of its five dormitories, suffered major roof damage. "The roofs are actually peeled away, and you can see the insides of the buildings," Mr. Flanagan said. Wind and flood damage on the Gautier campus can probably be cleaned up in a few weeks, he added. Other Mississippi colleges farther inland were beginning to recover from the storm by midweek. Classes resumed at five of the state's eight public universities on Wednesday of last week. Those that remained closed and without power as of Thursday were Alcorn State University, Jackson State University, and the University of Southern Mississippi, in Hattiesburg, where downed trees littered a campus that was otherwise spared major damage, according to university police. That campus was to remain closed until at least early this week. Tougaloo College, a private institution in southern Mississippi, also remained closed, according to The Clarion-Ledger, a newspaper in Jackson, Miss. A number of colleges did manage to relocate some of their students and employees before the hurricane hit. About 225 students and a handful of staff members from Dillard University, in New Orleans, were bused to Centenary College of Louisiana, in Shreveport, La., more than 300 miles northwest. The Rev. Betsy B. Eaves, campus chaplain at Centenary, said that the two institutions were "sister schools" and that Centenary had given shelter to Dillard students twice in the past, but never to so many at once. About 400 students from Tulane University who had been transported to Jackson State initially were being dispersed to other sites late last week because Jackson State's power was out. About 100 students arrived at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, last Wednesday -- including the Tulane football team, which had been scheduled to play its season-opening game on Sunday at the University of Southern Mississippi. The game has been postponed until November. An additional 275 Tulane students were bused to the Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta, which helped most of them arrange travel plans home. About 80 foreign students remained on the Atlanta campus, many of them with spouses and young children. "Some of them were worried about whether they'd continue to get their stipends from Tulane since they're not working, and how their visas would be affected," said David Terraso, a spokesman for Georgia Tech. "You really feel for them." Classes resumed on Wednesday at Mississippi State University, in Starkville, where students had spent the past few days helping remove tree limbs and debris from the campus. The university is located about 200 miles from the Gulf Coast, but many of the students grew up in areas devastated by the storm, and have been trying unsuccessfully to reach their families. Chaos in New Orleans Chaotic conditions continued in New Orleans, where Mayor Ray Nagin said that thousands of people may have died and that it could be weeks, or even months, before people could safely return to the city. Classes and normal operations were suspended last week at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, in New Orleans. Larry H. Hollier, dean of the university's School of Medicine, issued an urgent plea on Wednesday for faculty members, medical residents, and medical students to help care for patients at a staging area at the university's main campus, in Baton Rouge. Patients were being airlifted from flooded hospitals in downtown New Orleans. The Baton Rouge campus has canceled classes until this week so it can coordinate medical and other rescue efforts, as well as house storm refugees. The fate of many colleges and universities in New Orleans was unclear last week. Tulane's president, Scott S. Cowen, has said that most of the damage to Tulane's main campus could be repaired "in a reasonable period of time." "The uptown campus is covered with debris from fallen trees and shrubs, making it almost impossible to drive or even walk on campus," he wrote last week on the university's emergency Web site. "We have no power in any of the buildings other than a few where we control the power source." He called the situation "surreal and unfathomable." Tulane, one of more than a dozen colleges and universities in New Orleans, has received the most attention in part because it is one of largest, and one of the few that has been able to communicate with the public, thanks to its emergency Web site. Loyola's campus also escaped serious structural damage, but is littered with trees and debris. The University of Phoenix, which has campuses in Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and New Orleans, La., said it expected its Baton Rouge and Lafayette campuses to resume classes this week if power and staff members were in place but that its New Orleans campus was closed indefinitely. Flooding also forced the closure of the New Orleans campus of Bryman College, owned by Corinthian Colleges Inc. The disruption extended into Alabama, as well. The University of South Alabama, in Mobile, sustained some damage to trees and buildings, according to Keith Ayers, a campus spokesman. Because of gasoline shortages and local curfews, classes were not expected to resume until this week. Offers of Help Colleges and universities outside the area damaged by the hurricane filled the Internet with offers of assistance, but in most cases, those making the offers could not get through to the people they were trying to help. "The hardest part is the inability to establish direct communication with leaders on those campuses," said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education. His office was deluged with offers after the council's president, David Ward, called on colleges and universities across the country to help house and enroll displaced students and to find other ways to help the region rebuild. The council was also contacting members of Congress and urging them to deal with public-policy issues raised by the disaster. "Sadly, there will be a number of students whose family income has just dropped to zero," said Mr. Hartle. Colleges and universities across the country are offering to take in students who were enrolled at institutions affected by the hurricane. Wayne D. Watson, chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago, said last week that students from the Chicago area who were enrolled at any of the devastated institutions could attend classes at any of the Chicago district's seven colleges free. He said he was concerned about the vast numbers of displaced students who might return home and "stop out" of college. Dozens of institutions have made similar offers, including: Florida International University, Hampton University, the Rutgers University system, Sojourner-Douglass College, the University of Arkansas system, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Kansas, and the University of Virginia. It may be some time before college officials affected by Katrina know the extent of the storm's damage to their buildings, or the effects of less-obvious problems such as mold. The biggest handicap for officials at colleges that were directly in the path of the hurricane is the lack of mobility and access on their campuses, said Brooks Baker, associate vice president for facilities at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "They really can't move around to do anything," said Mr. Baker, a former president of the Association of Higher Education Facilities Officers. Once they can return to their campuses, officials will need to "go building by building and assess whether it can be made viable for the future," Mr. Baker said. "Even if they have water in them, they can still be usable if they're structurally sound. But if they're not, if they've been weakened by the wind and the water, you just have to start over." When damage is finally assessed, there will be plenty of "competition for the contractors necessary to do the repairs," said Mary Breighner, a vice president at FM Global, which insures property at many private institutions. (Most public colleges are insured by their states.) A more immediate concern for colleges along the Gulf Coast, though, is finding a way to pay for essential needs. If a university's accounting department and local banks are closed, "somebody, somewhere has to have money to spend," said Kim W. Nimmo, a risk-services specialist at United Educators, a risk-management and insurance company. Covering such expenses should be part of a college's crisis plan, Mr. Nimmo said. Goldie Blumenstyk, Jamilah Evelyn, Audrey Williams June, and Sara Lipka contributed to this article. http://chronicle.com Section: Money & Management Volume 52, Issue 3, Page A1 Copyright © 2005 by The Chronicle of Higher Education =========================================== --------------------------------------- <http://blackeducator.blogspot.com> --------------------------------------- -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Help Sudanese refugees rebuild their lives through GlobalGiving. http://us.click.yahoo.com/V8WM1C/EbOLAA/E2hLAA/CfTolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! 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